For the second time in the last three seasons, the Buffalo Bills are playoff bound.
Following their 17-10 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday Night Football in Week 15, the Bills clinched at least the fifth-seed in the AFC.
Unlike when the Bills ended their 17-year playoff drought two years ago, this team expects much more out themselves. Much more than just a one and done Wild Card game.
“Everything about it is different,” Defensive End Shaq Lawson told the media after the game. “The whole vibe is different. It’s a 360. (Brandon) Beane and (Sean) McDermott came in and changed it and brought they guys in and it’s paying off right now. Two out of the three years they’ve been here, we’ve been in the playoffs. So, something working… We winning, the culture different. Everybody in the building know what we gotta do and we wanna win a Super Bowl.”
Bills offensive lineman, Dion Dawkins, echoed similar sentiments when speaking in the Bills locker room Sunday night.
“Coach McDermott came in here and he had a team,” Dawkins said. “He had Beane with him… and had a plan. And their plan was to get guys here that can learn, can adapt and can believe in what the coaches are preaching. Three years, two playoffs, it’s special.”
Dawkins made sure to clarify that despite the team’s success, there is still more work to be done.
“Once again, like, we didn’t win the Super Bowl, you know? This is normal now, you know? This is normal. And we’re gonna keep this going and we’re gonna see how how far we can get,” Dawkins said.
Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White, who had a monster game against the Steelers, added that team has to stick with what has gotten them to this point.
“It’s big because we get to go to the playoffs for the second time in three years,” White said. “Before all of us got here it was a 17-year drought. We’ve been building this thing since 2017, since we all got here. I feel like, you know, it’s starting to take a turn, but we just gotta continue to trust the process and just go to work each and every day and just try to be the best that we can be.”
White also stated that past failures in the Bills franchise were not connected to this current group.
“This team is not connected to the past, but we just wanna be that team to pretty much break down those barriers and break those boundaries. We’ve been doing a great job all year just responding to adversity and just, you know, playing total team football,” White said.
The Bills will certainly enjoy clinching a playoff berth tonight, but their sights will quickly shift to the New England Patriots, who they will face on a short week, Saturday afternoon.
At 11-5, the Patriots currently hold a game lead over the 10-4 Bills in the AFC East standings. The Bills would need to beat the Patriots and then the Jets in Week 17 and hope the Dolphins can find a way to beat New England during the final week of the season as well, in order to win the division.
Regardless of where they finish, the Bills will be in the dance, which still takes some getting use to after all of those years of being on the outside looking in. But, as several of the players said after their biggest win of the season, that is no longer good enough. It’s the new normal.
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